Flint Hills Map & Education Program

You Are Here

Welcome to our new place-based education program for all who want to learn or teach about our home - the Flint Hills.

Mission

To deepen students’ knowledge, pride, and commitment to their special place in the world – the Flint Hills

To give teachers motivational tools to connect learning to students' own lives, communities, and local environment

To provide a web-based center of learning about the Flint Hills for all

INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAM - 2 Parts:

Map Exhibits - Placed in Flint Hills Schools and Colleges

Website: Teaching Resources for Educators & Information Resources for all

1. Map Exhibits - in 180 Flint Hills schools

The cornerstone of the Flint Hills education program is the 48" X 48" wall-mounted exhibit. These are installed in a central location of the school for students to see on a daily basis. These are durable museum-quality educational exhibits - rich with information so viewers can find something new every time they see it. On the left is a large Flint Hills Map boldly defining the Flint Hills region and displaying areas of remaining tallgrass prairie. On the right is an illustrated educational section of original artwork and informational text in three versions:

Elementary

Middle school

High school

Each school’s map has a custom-placed “You Are Here” arrow pointing to the location of the school. Students can see and touch this arrow, developing a strong sense of identity, pride, place, and home in the Flint Hills.

All public schools and colleges in the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma were invited to install the exhibit - to give students a deeper understanding of the place where they live. Over 180 schools have installed exhibits - see list of PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS at left.

There was no cost to schools for the exhibits which were funded by private donations to the Map Program through the Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation - See list of our SPONSORS at left.

2. This Website

For Educators: Flint Hills TEACHING Resources. (See at left)
Students often ask: What does this have to do with me? This program helps teachers answer that question and motivate students with over 250 lessons and activities based in their own lives, experience, and local environment, across a range of subjects and grade levels. Not intended to give teachers more to teach, it provides quick access to locally-relevant ways to present basic skills they are already teaching.

All About the Flint Hills: INFORMATION Resources - for Schools and Public (See at left)
This section contains descriptions and links to over 200 recommended on-line resources, indexed by topic to save students and teachers time. Also provided are bibliographies of valuable print resources, a large section on Flint Hills Quotations, Reference info on the map exhibit, and more.
These resources provide a center of learning about the Flint Hills for all - students, teachers, farmers/ranchers, business people, researchers, and the public at large.

SUPPORT
Schools installing a map exhibit can also receive in-service training and assistance for teachers explaining the program's learning activities and information resources.

Notify Me

If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.

- Wendell Berry, Author, Bioregionalist

In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.